Your gift will support all areas of the Girard College experience including the following.

The Fit Campus Initiative

Food: A campus-wide interest in improving what we eat, GIRARD children are eating more salad, fresh fruit and whole grains, The Girard College Sustainable Garden has changed how our kids understand the food they eat. From elementary children growing the herbs used in the school meals to middle and upper school students actively planning and working in the school's garden, our kids will appreciate food sources, be more aware of nutrition and be better stewards of the environment.

Fitness: All Girard children are engaged in physical activity on a regular basis. In addition to Girard's middle school and high school sports teams, there are additional intramural offerings, "Fit Clubs" and activities such as yoga, pilates, kick boxing, dancing, recreational running, cycling, jump rope and ultimate frisbee. Required activity is a dramatic change for some of our less fit students but one that has been embraced by the community.

Health: Improvements in overall health are tracked through baseline BMI (body mass index) measurements and fitness evaluations with heart-rate monitors. The information is shared with the children as a motivating tool and it allows funders to see that health and fitness can have positive outcomes for our kids.

Fit Campus Partners Include: General Mills Ian Smith Foundation, Food Source, the Philadelphia Horticultural Society and Greener Partners.

Residential Program

In the spirit of Stephen Girard, the school educates the whole child. Nowhere is this more evident than in the residential program. Students learn life lessons about living in a community, enrich their schoolday educational experiences, and pursue the official school goals of integrity, respect, self-discipline, compassion and responsibility.

Living on campus five days per week allows the children to participate in a broader range of extracurricular activities. For example, younger children explore the world of dinosaurs set up in their dorm's activity room; older students learn to play jazz or chess in clubs that are far more numerous and in-depth than conventional afterschool programs.

Residential advisors intrinsically and positively affect the lives of their students as they guide them through the academic, social, and personal aspects of their lives.

Community Partnerships

Girard College is reaching beyond our walls to bring together a rich portfolio of resources for our students and to share our facilities and talents with the community.

Through our recent partnership with MLK 360, Girard College now hosts the region's largest gathering for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day service activities.

Participation in community service is a vital component of a Girard education, one that prepares students to positively contribute to their neighborhoods and community today and after graduation. Recent Service Learning activities included the Service Club's sandwich-making for homeless people, participation in the breast cancer Race for the Cure, and art-based service projects like making bowls for the hungry.

Girard College changes lives.

We invite you to invest in the children of this generation, just as Stephen Girard invested in countless generations.

Gifts to the Girard College Development Fund
support programs and activities for current students.

____ $2,600 – can provide one month of medical support from a local pediatric group for our fully staffed health center.

____ $1,000 – can provide instruments for music class and band or art supplies for "E3," our extra-curricular activities program;
or can buy SAT Prep materials for the junior class.

____ $500 – can underwrite a special assembly for the Lower School or underwrite transportation services for
Girard's spring sports teams.

____ $250 – can underwrite two robotics kits for co-curricular Robotics Clubs for first- to third-grade students or or a single,
more advanced robotics kit for fourth- through sixth-grade students; or purchase materials for the senior-level
class, Evolution & Comparative Anatomy.

____ $100 – can provide a subscription to online enrichment programs or research subscriptions for the library/media center;
or can replenish game and activity materials in the "Hum," Girard's student center.